Do you want to fast-track your success and achieve great results? My guest this week, international speaker Camilita Nuttall, is here to tell you what works from her own personal experience. Tune in to find out the 12 steps to grow your business exponentially.

Focus+Work*Belief-Fear=Results

Focus means forgetting everything else. Focus has to do with commitment, and commitment means the death of all other options.

First you need to focus, then you need to do the work. When everything is going wrong, that’s the time you have to believe. We all want to quit sometimes, but when we push through the fear of our own selves, that’s when we get the results.

Don’t be afraid to lose

It’s important to set goals of precision. Focus on every little detail. Also, don’t be afraid to quit. You will feel like quitting every single day.

Don’t be afraid to lose, because you will lose and that’s normal. Be willing to do extraordinary things.

Have a bulletproof mindset. That’s where you win or lose, in your own mind. Have a positive mental attitude.

Be steadfast in your efforts

Create something from nothing. If you want to grow your business, find something that everyone else is looking for, create it, and then find multiple ways to make money from it.

Be a giver, not a taker.

Be steadfast in your efforts. Keep going because life happens. You are bigger and better than that.

Focus on income-generating work and have a clear customer plan

Only focus on income-generating work. The reason why most businesses struggle or fail in the first five years is that their focus is not on income-generating work.

The size and quality of your network determine your net worth.

Learn the difference between having a clear customer plan vs a business plan. Very few people today have a customer plan. Ask yourself:

What is your customer looking for?

What do they want?

Is your business customer-led or business plan-led?

Always seek knowledge

Utilize the most important tip for massive growth and success: ASK (Always Seek Knowledge).

We have not because we ask not.

If you need something in business, there is someone who has the key to your next success. The more you ask, the quicker you will grow. What do you have to lose?

Always reinvent yourself and find the people at the top

Find new ways to market your brand, product, or service online or offline. When was the last time you had a launch or a relaunch? Keep people in the loop. Always reinvent yourself.

Go from the top down, not the bottom up. Always go to the decision-makers, not to the gatekeepers. Find the people at the top and ask them.

There is a fine line between authenticity and hypocrisy. It’s important to be aware of what you are communicating in order to make sure you achieve the best results. My guest this week is Ed DeCosta, a powerful executive coach and an engaging keynote speaker here to offer some important pieces of information on how to make sure you always deliver authentic messages.

The quest for authenticity

Authenticity is about being real, honest, truthful. The opposite of that is being false, dishonest. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another.

One of the goals of our communications is to evoke emotion.

Sometimes your politeness can be misinterpreted. The same goes for silence.

Always defend your point of view

Situational awareness is extremely important. You should ask yourself:

What’s going on?

Where am I?

Who am I?

What is my role? What am I supposed to do?

If somebody confronts you and says, “I believe this about an issue you talk about”, this is a situation where it’s socially acceptable to share your view.

If you don’t share your opinion, and you pretend that you agree, that’s a sign of hypocrisy. You have an opportunity to defend your point of view, but you choose not to.

If you permit hypocrisy, you promote it

If someone behaves out of alignment of what they say their values are, they are perpetuating hypocrisy.

If you permit someone’s hypocrisy, you promote it as well.

Self-leadership is vital. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to realize that you’re either being honest, or you’re not.

Steer clear of acquiescing

Have values you actually believe in. Do whatever exercises you need to do to sink those values deeply into your fabric, your soul. Too many people acquiesce. They don’t say what they were thinking because they believe it wouldn’t have been appropriate. Then they’re full of regret and remorse.

Are you aware of the habits that are limiting your career advancement? If you want to have more influence and more power, it’s time to put an end to certain patterns of thinking. To help you achieve that, I’ve invited someone I truly admire: author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith.

The profile of the leader of the future

The leader of the future has to have four attributes, according to Marshall:

The ability to think globally and being able to manage people in a global setting.

Cross-cultural appreciation. Diversity is not just about dealing with minorities in the US, but also about dealing with different cultures all around the world.

Being tech-savvy. We can no longer hide from technology.

Being able to build alliances and partnerships. Nowadays leadership is much more across, instead of being top-down.

Shared leadership. In the past, leaders assumed they knew more than the people they led. Today the leader is no longer superior. Leaders of the future have to quit being the smartest person in the room.

Don’t always add value and listen to your people

In his job as an executive coach Marshall gives people a lot of feedback. His clients pick the areas in which they need to make the most changes, and he helps them with that.

He says that managers have a constant tendency of giving too much value. It’s very hard for smart, successful people not to constantly add value. Your suggestions as an executive become orders and you can end up diminishing the ideas of your employees.

Before you speak, breathe, and ask yourself, “Is it worth it? If I am not the expert on this topic, why am I speaking? Anything I say will probably end up doing more harm than good.”

Don’t sacrifice your career for your job

Marshall’s latest book, “How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job”, is a collaboration with Sally Helgesen. The idea was to create a book for any woman who is ready to advance to the next level.

One of the brilliant concepts in the book is sacrificing your career for your job. Women are much more likely to do this than men. They can get so wrapped up in doing a great job, that they don’t really invest in their career. They tend to have this naive assumption that if they do a good job, it should be the best thing to advance their career.

What you should be doing is always looking at that next job. If you’re not careful, you can become indispensable. Then you’re really stuck. Indispensable means, “We can’t get rid of her, she’s adding too much value.”

Become aware of what is limiting your career and start making changes

Women are much better than men at giving credit to others and saying we instead of I. This is generally a good thing. The only problem is that sometimes you need to get promoted.

If you want to make a bigger, more positive difference in the world, you need to have more power. You can’t influence people with no power.

If you want more power, you need to be aware of the things that stop your career. If you think, “I love my team so much, I’m ashamed to be promoted”, you ultimately limit your career and the influence you can have in the world.

We hold on to mental models too much. If we say, “That’s the way I am” with no intention of changing anything, then we will always get what we always got. We always have a choice. If we want more power and more authority, we need to change this way of thinking.

We are all stuck with each other on this planet, so we might as well learn from each other and be willing to share our expertise. A firm believer in the power of mentorship is my guest and good friend, Simone Vincenzi. Join us as we explore the unlimited possibilities of what a good coach has to offer.

On today’s podcast:

Focusing on a good work-life balance

The difference between “rubber” and “glass” activities

The best ideas come to you in the most unexpected moments

Differences between American and European leadership development styles

Focusing on a good work-life balance

Simone is motivated by serving his clients. He is helping experts become authorities in their fields, and this is what makes him happy.

He doesn’t want to work all the time. His solution to a good work-life balance is focusing on work when he is working, and focusing on relaxing when he is on holidays. Simone also makes sure he carves out pockets of time for his wife.

The difference between “rubber” and “glass” activities

After reading “The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results”, Simone understood the importance of scheduling and prioritizing.

The book talks about different ways of scheduling your time and finding out what’s really important to you. It classifies activities as being “rubber” or “glass”.

Rubber activities can be postponed, they are not made of glass. Glass activities can break, and relationships and family belong to this category.

The best ideas come to you in the most unexpected moments

Entrepreneurs often feel that they never have enough success. Simone has also fought with this feeling for a long time, and he needs to constantly remind himself that he has enough success.

When you’re very passionate about what you do, opportunities open up everywhere. You feel like you don’t want to miss out on anything.

Sometimes you just have to stop for a moment and feel good about your work. We come up with the best ideas when we don’t actively think about solutions.

Differences between American and European leadership development styles

Simone noticed massive differences in leadership development between the US and Europe. In the US, people tend to be go-getters. In Europe, they are more relaxed, sometimes too relaxed.

He moved from Italy to London, because he finds London much more similar in terms of mentality to the US. In Italy, people love complaining, without really seeking a solution to their problems.

In the US, there is an active approach when it comes to leadership development. In Europe, the approach is more reactive. However, the trend seems to be changing nowadays.

Simone’s principles

Simone believes in a few fundamental principles:

If you don’t grow, you die.

We are in this together. Unfortunately nowadays we are getting more and more isolated. With technology, we have the false feeling that we are more connected, while in reality we are more and more disconnected. Together we can achieve greater things.

Simone’s podcast and classes

On his podcast, Explode Your Expert Biz Show, he interviews leaders and experts and asks them for tips and strategies on how to grow a business, particularly one based on personal brand. The show is full of practical, implementable steps.

If you want to learn more, you can also take one of Simone’s courses. You can find the list here

There is no right way to communicate

Communication has to be at the foundation of our leadership toolbox if we aim really high.

Matt teaches leaders how to be comfortable with themselves when it comes to their communication. Many people don’t feel comfortable doing presentations or speaking up in meetings, but that can be changed.

Many people also feel that when they are communicating they are performing, that they have to do it right. In fact, there is no right way to communicate. There are certainly better or worse ways, but if you put the pressure on yourself to do it right, you’re actually undermining your ability to do it at all.

We perceive speaking as a threat

We tend to see speaking in front of others in high-stake situations as threatening. It’s a threat to our potential future. For instance, entrepreneurs are afraid that they will not receive funding or support.

A lot of our anxiety around speaking is the threat that we feel from the potential negative future outcome.

Many people, because of their perceived inability to communicate effectively, feel that they are not as worthy or as valuable as other people, even when they have fantastic ideas.

How to prepare for a talk

What can you about it? You can start by saying:

I have interesting and valuable information to share.

It’s not about what I want to share, it’s about what others need to get. The audience-centric approach focuses on the needs of the people you’re communicating with and it can really help you get out of your negative space.

Preparation is key to feeling confident. When it comes to preparing a high-stake communication, you have to figure out what your goal is. A goal has three fundamental parts:

Information – what do I want my audience to know?

Emotions – how do I want them to feel?

Action – what do I want them to do when I’m done?

Take the time between now and when you’re presenting and divide it in half. The first half is preparation time, the second half is practice time.

How to tame anxiety

You then have to learn how to manage the anxiety you feel. You have to take a two-pronged approach:

Managing the symptoms of anxiety

Managing the sources of anxiety

Many of us when we present, we blush or we perspire because we’re nervous. It’s an automatic result of our blood pressure going up. We can reduce the sweating and blushing by simply holding something cold in the palms of our hands.

There are lots of sources of anxiety. One is feeling evaluated. If we could do something to distract our audience’s attention, then we can feel better. For example, if we start a meeting by taking a poll or showing a video, we can take the attention away from ourselves and we can put it on whatever that activity is. In doing so, we also get to engage our audience.

The trap of procrastination

Many of us procrastinate because we don’t like feeling anxious. It’s easier to just put things off. In reality, it just makes them worse.

The insidious part about procrastination is that it builds in an excuse. If you have a major presentation coming up and you delay preparing it, and then you give it and it doesn’t go well, you can always say to yourself “If only I put more time in.”

If you want to fight procrastination, first, create a plan and stick to it. Second, publicly commit to that plan. Also, give yourself a reward every once in a while if you’re sticking to the plan.

Have a goal-driven, structured approach

So how do you know if your message was successful? Ask yourself “Did I accomplish my goal?” Having a goal-driven approach provides you with a way to assess success. After the communication, you also need to reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

Structure is very important. Any effective communication needs to be structured. Matt’s personal favorite structure is the “What? – So what? – Now what?” structure.

In this structure, you define what it is you’re talking about, then you provide the reason why your communication is important, and finally you talk about the next step, the approach you want people to take.

Leadership lessons to be learned

In everything we do, there are leadership lessons to be learned. More often than not it’s the failures and the mistakes that really help polish us.

On September 6th, 2017, Christine was alone in her home in the British Virgin Islands, which got hit by the biggest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic base. It was the second largest weather event in the history of recorded weather and it destroyed everything around and left them without infrastructure, running water, electricity, you name it.

Christine had done all the preparations from her training before the hurricane, and she discovered she felt a sense of complacency. She had weathered other hurricane seasons before and her home, in particular, was very well protected. She thought that she was so well protected, that she spent the day before helping others.

We should never be complacent

Her mentality in approaching preparation was the mentality of a boat captain going offshore who has to be fully functioning and self-sustaining.

She soon learned the things she didn’t do well. She didn’t have a satellite tracker nearby that would have allowed her to communicate by text and email, and she didn’t have her VHS radio close, which used to be her main source of communication with the community when the telecoms were down.

Despite her initial sense of security, she soon found out that complacency can kill. That’s also true in business and leadership. We should never allow ourselves to become complacent.

Mistakes are made for learning

When all hell broke loose, she was alone in her home. She didn’t know anyone else on the island who was alone during this hurricane. Two weeks later when they were hit again, she made sure that she was with her community. You learn from these experiences.

In conflict and in disaster, it’s important to be with your team, and not just by yourself.

Christine had to be mindful during the whole time while she was stuck in her house because she didn’t have anyone to talk to and there was no distraction. She spent a lot of hours writing down what she was learning every moment in order to make sure that she would never go through this experience the same way again.

Learn to have tolerance for uncertainty

Christine discovered seven key leadership skills through her experience. The most important of them is tolerance for uncertainty and adversity. That’s being able to view challenges as opportunities.

This is a critical cornerstone to coping with any situation: learning how to live in a rhythm that you can’t control, which is pretty much every day when you’re an entrepreneur.

Christine chose to commit and devote everything she had to the community’s greater good. This sense of purpose helped her move in a direction. She had a vision for what needed to be done and then started doing it.

The four roles of leadership

She really learned how to best use her resources. It’s a skill set that most of us don’t ever have to think about, unless we’re starting a business or if our survival needs aren’t met.

She realized that there are four roles of leadership:

The passive role: that’s people who expect a designated leader to take over and give them what they need. They usually sit back and hope for the best, and are unwilling to assume a leadership role of their own.

Active leadership.

Peer leadership: being able to help your friends and your community in what they need.

Self-leadership. What in me has to grow so that I can be a functioning member of this team, culture, society, or business?

Exercising flexibility and being willing to step into each of this roles is critical to survival, to thriving, and to having a successful business.

How to deal with everyday stress

Danny works with a lot of executives and entrepreneurs, and he realizes that now that we have access to technology 24/7, most of us think that we should do everything. One of the first steps in professional relief of stress is to organize your day.

If anybody tries to sell you time management, run. You have to learn to prioritize the things you need to do and then manage your time accordingly.

A German philosopher once said, “Never allow the most important things in life to be at the mercy of the least important things”.

For thousands of years, yogis have known that most of us think, on average, about 1000 thoughts an hour. The goal of yoga is to slow things down so that we can go deeper and think more creative thoughts.

Yogis developed very simple breathing techniques. When you meditate, your heartbeat slows down and your thoughts slow down as well.

Nevermind your failures

Danny’s philosophy on a mistake or a problem is that it’s a failure only if you don’t learn something from it.

Danny’s four-step process to overcome your failures is:

What happened? Be very honest and don’t point any blame at someone else

Why did it happen?

How will it never happen again?

See you later aka move forward and don’t look back

It’s not a big deal to reframe our challenges if we really understand the need to look at them from another level.

We are all creating our own reality. Our thoughts are turning into things, so it’s really all about focus. If we frame something as a failure, we’re going to get more of it. It’s a spiral and there is no happy ending to an unhappy journey, as Craig likes to say.

We all have inner self-talk. Through meditation and mindfulness practices, we can reframe who we think we are.

Most people live a “circumstantial life”: they believe that once they get all their ducks lined up they will be happy. When we’re at peace, we draw all the circumstances we want.

How to be comfortable with yourself

We’ve been trained to give the easy answer instead of the right answer in life. Danny asks people “Do you live your life in survival mode or possibility mode?”

The Life Success Chart is a pie chart broken down into nine areas of life that Danny and Craig use. They ask people to put a dot in every one of these slices. If you put a dot in the middle of the pie, it means 0, if you put it on the outer side, it is a 10. So if you reply with a 5 at a specific slice, you would place your dot somewhere in the middle.

You end up with 9 dots on the pie chart. If you connect all these dots, it’s an amazing graphic picture to look at.

The word “yoga’ from Sanskrit literally means union. Yoga is a lifestyle, it doesn’t have to do just with the body.

In order to get a hold of our minds, we have to first recognize that sometimes our minds cannot control our minds.

We have to be our own CEOs and constantly be looking for new opportunities if we want to successfully advance in our career.

Networking trumps everything

What’s the first thing to do when you want to switch jobs? You should study what people in your industry whom you admire are doing.

A common problem a lot of job seekers face is that companies normally say “Apply on our website, and if you are a good fit, we’ll call you.” It sounds so easy, and you just assume that someone will call you and it’s going to be great.

But the thing is that when a hiring agent is looking for someone to hire, they don’t think “I’m going to get some Internet resumes from strangers and look through them”. Instead, they think “Do I know anybody for this job or do I know someone who knows someone?”

Networking trumps everything. Knowing the right person will almost always get you further.

Keep your resume updated

Our resume is our snapshot of who we are as professionals. You should get someone to proofread it, but don’t hire a resume writer, because you need to work on it yourself. It helps you think of the message you are putting out there.

You should carry copies of your resume, either on your phone as a PDF, or as a piece of paper. Your resume should be one or two pages long, ideally.

Be careful to include things that reflect your real experience and your achievements. Interviewing is a little bit like going to a dinner party, and there are certain things you should leave out. For instance, things related to money, or your religious or political views. You can also leave out your references and your GPA.

You shouldn’t dust off your resume when you need it, you should look at it on a regular basis because you never know when the opportunity could knock.

How to prepare for an interview

First off, get some good rest and then go and have a fun time. A lot of interview decisions are based on “Do we like this person? Do we want to spend time with them?”

Another idea to take time to really write your elevator pitch. You can go through and practice other tricky questions, like “What’s your greatest weakness?”

You also have to do your homework in terms of researching the company.

Should you follow up after the interview?

Yes. You should send a thank you email and a thank you card.

Why do both? Because very often the company will decide that day or the next day who they want to give the job offer to. If you only send the handwritten card, they may have already made the decision, and you’re too late.

You do want to send the card though because if you do you’ll probably be the only person who does it. And that really helps to make you stand out. You can throw in your business card along with your handwritten note.

What’s the biggest misconception about the job search process?

When you’re looking for a job, and you find a job description, very often that job description will have a “Requirements” part. So often the biggest reason people are not applying for jobs is because they assume that they are not qualified.

Very often the companies are willing to talk to people who don’t meet all the requirements. Maybe they are actually having a tough time finding good candidates.

When we think about consensus, persuasion, and delivering the very best message, it all starts with communication. My guest this week, Keynote speaker and award-winning journalist Eleanor Beaton shares a wealth of practical knowledge and inspiration on how to be the best leader you can be.

Communicate incisively and on point

We know that communication is important. It should be at the foundation of our leadership toolbox. So how do we take the jump from being a good communicator to being a good persuader?

It all comes down to a critical skill that we will see again and again and again in the world’s most successful leaders. To Eleanor, a successful leader is someone who can drive the business outcomes in a way that is also driving happiness, performance, fulfillment both for themselves and for their team.

There are two components you should keep in mind:

Stop explaining your ideas, and rather position them. Don’t talk vaguely about your ideas. You want your communication to be incisive and on point.

Really dial up how you perform in meetings. Meetings are the critical unit of performance inside any organization. Every important thing gets decided or undone in a meeting.

Learn how to position your ideas

When it comes to positioning your ideas, there are some things you should pay attention to:

A controlling idea. Rather than just talking generally, take a position and share a controlling idea: your opinion on where things need to be.

Give people the details: the who, what, where, when. Offer them some stories or some examples that drive the controlling idea home.

Own the promise. When this group of people follows you, what will be possible?

Where does the confidence come from? Practice, practice, practice.

The challenge of leadership

As a leader, it’s important to be humble, authentic and transparent, but it is also important to have excitement. If you can’t get excited enough to say “This is where we’re going, this is what’s possible for us.”, if you can’t courageously own that, who can? That is the challenge of leadership.

The reality is that the majority of our waking hours are spent at work. We give so much of our time, energy, attention, blood, sweat and tears to our organizations. As leaders, let’s make that count for something.

You have to have the courage to move from being a student to being a teacher. You have to recognize that your insight and your experience have value.

Constantly reinvent yourself if you want to succeed

The leaders who always seem to get the most traction, the ones who are able to tap into the most endless stream of opportunities are those who have taken control of their personal brand, who are contributing their thoughts and ideas in journals, conferences, on podcasts, who are really speaking their truth. You develop the courage to do it through the commitment to take action and to share what you know.

You should be able to reinvent yourself in order to stay relevant. It doesn’t matter how old you are. You can do that in a couple of ways:

By making sure that you continue to build your network.

By making sure that you are continuously taking on stretch assignments. Find new ways to cultivate your creativity.

This week I am joined by humorist, speaker, and author Robert Wilson. Robert shares some really funny stories, and some wonderful advice on how to become a better storyteller and bring more innovation to your life, and to the lives of others.

Telling stories that make a point

Robert tries to tell stories that make a point. He usually writes about achievement, motivation, leadership, creativity, and innovation.

Most often than not, what he writes about is what he was dealing with that month. It may not be specific, but he might write on that topic area. He learns a lot from self-reflection and just putting it on paper helps him learn from it. Other people can learn from it as well.

Creativity is not a gift, it’s a lifestyle

Robert has learned over the years that creativity is not a gift. From when we are small, we are constantly told to conform, and by the time we reach adulthood, many of us have repressed their natural creative abilities. Many of us believe that creativity is a gift, when instead it is a skill that anyone can regenerate at any point in time.

You can learn how to re-stimulate your creativity. In Robert’s opinion, creativity is not just a skill, it’s also a lifestyle.

When you are an innovator, you expose yourself to new things all the time: experiences, ideas. By doing so, you open new areas in your brain that otherwise wouldn’t be open. When that happens, you can make more connections.

Want to become a risk-taker? Start with baby risks

Sometimes people are afraid to bring their creativity forward. Creative thinkers are risk-takers. How do you become a risk-taker? You can start by taking baby steps. Innovators have been taking risks all their lives, so they are comfortable with doing that.

You can start small in a number of different ways. For example, if you read the newspaper every day, and you never read a certain section, read it. If you drink coffee every day, switch to tea for a week. Switch hands when you brush your teeth. Write with your non-dominant hand.

Taking risks means there is something that you can lose. You can start with baby risks, in order to get comfortable with that.

Keep a journal of your achievements

It’s a good idea to keep a journal of our achievements. A lot of the times we forget a lot of these little things that we’ve accomplished, and it’s good to read them through and pat ourselves on the back from time to time.

These little achievements build up and they allow us to start building the confidence to do more and more.

We can also observe other people who are accomplishing what we want to accomplish. If we see these people, we can say “If these people are doing it, surely I can do it too”.